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McCain's speech: the verdict

Fraser Nelson

Friday, 5th September 2008

For his speech last night, John McCain had a walkway built into the floor - perhaps to remind him of the town hall settings he's most comfortable with. He's not a great platform speaker, and proved this yet again yesterday. He did not eclipse Palin. But the text was interesting, and here's my take on some of it.

“I don’t work for a party, I don’t work for a special interest, I work for you”. After accepting his party’s nomination McCain says he won’t work for them – and that’s the crux of his campaign. Not a third term, he says, but a fresh break. Reform is McCain’s theme and as James said earlier he’d won so much kudos with the Palin pick that he could afford to wag his finger at his party and tell them what power-hungry, sex-mad little spendthrifts they’d been on the Hill.

Sarah Palin “has worked with her hands and nose…” For a millisecond I thought this another obscure Alaskan pastime we didn’t know about. But I missheard. He said she's “worked with hands and knows what it's like to worry about mortgage payments and health care and the cost of gasoline and groceries.” Cue shot of St Sarah, her hair back in the librarian’s bun. Whether she wears it up or down is becoming a point of American national debate - one up on Obama.

“My friends... ignore the ground noise and the static” Some protester shouted “Vote Barack Obama” then bolted. The crowd responded by ignoring McCain and shouting USA! USA! until the police nabbed her. Infiltration isn’t as hard as you’d expect - anyone can get in to these conventions as passes are transferrable. McCain had tried to calm them “please.. please.. please” and could have become a dangerously failed experiment in crowd control. But his "ground noise" quip went well. He'd have been better, in my view, to do a Blair about how she couldnt have pulled a stunt like that in Saddam's Iraq.

“I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them.“ I went to see the exiled Democrat Joe Lieberman at a fringe meeting yesterday, and he said this is one of the main reasons he's backing McCain. That Bill Clinton was for free trade, but Obama is against it. Against the Korean free trade proposal, which Lieberman said he was particularly appalled by, and has even questioned Nafta. The candidates are polar opposites in the approach to globalisation – Obama favours a Franco-German protectionist approach nurturing favoured industries. A recipe for unemployment, of course. So McCain is fighting back. This is a wedge issue for those who care enough about it.

“My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them.” Yes, high taxes kill jobs – I’d love for the Tories to make this basic point more often.

That he went to Vietnam “for my own pleasure, my own pride. I didn't think there was a cause more important than me” Huh? I was surprised at this idea of him as a born-again patriot. It’s strange to suggest he enlisted out of a sense of adventurism, not patriotism. Yet he told his familiar POW story powerfully, there were literally tears in the audience’s eyes.

“I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's.” So he didn’t love his country when he put on its uniform? Not very credible, given his family’s military background. This “was blind but now I see” narrative could have been dropped completely.

“What is the value of access to a failing school? We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice.” Amen, lets here Cameron do a riff on the same theme. McCain had plenty more. “Senator Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucrats.” So does Gordon Brown, and Cameron should nail him for it.

“Let’s help… bad teachers find another line of work”. Nice soundbite, but the wrong sentiment. His aim should be to liberalise schools so headmasters sack poor staff like every other employer.

“I hate war, it’s terrible beyond imagination”. He could have copied Eisenhower and elaborated a little here on this theme – his CV entitles him to.

“My country saved me and I will fight for her so long as I draw breath so help me God… Fight with me. Fight with me” – reminiscent of Cameron’s “I want you to come with me” in his Blackpool 05 speech. This set off the crowd, who roared and McCain gave up waiting for them to subdue. He launched into his peroration without them shutting up, so I didn’t catch the rest of it. It all ended with that dismal “Raising McCain” song. All those balloons they’ve had in nets all week were finally released. Some were humongous, which the audiences batted around like beach balls. The song was Barracuda by Heart – another salute to Sarah, her nickname when she was playing basketball rather too competitively. Then, as if not to be outdone by Obama, picture of fireworks in the screen beside him.

In my view, they were the only fireworks in the room tonight. McCain doesn’t speak well, and he spoke for too long. It wasn’t as good as Palin’s speech, and for the first time the vice president overshadowed the nominee. The Neilsen ratings out today showed that 19m women watched her speech, 5m more than Obama. She has halved the so-called “enthusiasm gap” motivating Democrats and Republicans to 20 points. And that – not McCain’s speech – was the achievement of this week.

P.S. I found out why Palin was struggling with the teleprompter last night, and why it looked bad for those like me who thought she was fluffing lines. The old teleprompter broke, a new one had been put in a few hours before and it was moving too fast for her – failing to stop for applause. So she had to ad lib chunks of it, and looking down at a written version of her speech, which she’d taken crumpled up from the pocket of an aide because her original had too many scribbles on it. So her pitbull/lipstick gag last night was improvised. As a former newscaster, it won’t have been her first autocue malfunction. But the way that no one watching on television noticed was class. All hail.

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Ray

September 5th, 2008 9:27am

I reaffirm my comments on an ealier blog about thedr abominations called autocues.

tim

September 5th, 2008 11:02am

So if Sarah is so photogenic, great with the autocue, tell a good joke, look drop-dead gorgeous, know how to attack, and improvise a phrase; why why why does she believe in such ridiculous 'religious' views that most would think shocking if she was a Muslim.
She is a contradiction and folks are being beguiled by the form and forgetting the content.

Keith

September 5th, 2008 11:13am

I'm not sure where but one blog had a post which suggested that 'flipping the ticket' might not seem a bad option. Hard to disagree with that!
You're right though, McCain is not a good speaker.

JONNY

September 5th, 2008 11:25am

He brought her in. Now he has to find a way of blotting her off of the media.
Otherwise he's a dead old moose.

David

September 5th, 2008 11:27am

Fraser, I'd agree that this wasn't exactly a barnstormer. But speeches like this are not McCain's strength; he's far better when he can think on his feet and be more personal. That is why I believe the debates will be far more crucial for him, especially since Obama seems to struggle at being direct and specific.

I have to say I liked the contrast in sets between this and the Democratic convention. A simple flag compared with a Greek temple; just who does Obama think he is?

Oscar

September 5th, 2008 12:33pm

All hail Palin indeed for coping with a malfunctioning teleprompter with such consummate poise. That woman is a phenomenon. Hopefully it will get the 'it's easy to deliver a few soundbites from a speechwriter' brigade to shut up. But I doubt it.

oldtimer

September 5th, 2008 12:57pm

I watched the McCain speech last night. For me the content worked - and worked well.

I took his comments on his Vietnam experience to reveal that he went to war as a cocky, self regarding young man and came back a changed, humble man. An experience that Obama is unable to match. I found that a telling point - perhaps this is a generational thing because I am even older than McCain.

In short I thought it was a triumph of substance over style.
On key issues I know what he stands for and how he intends to go about it. I`m not sure I understand Obama`s position that clearly.

Augustus

September 5th, 2008 1:06pm

You say that McCain does not speak well, but as a convention closer it was a perfectly clear and successful speech. McCain's altruism shone through the usual spin of modern politics. He also, by cleverly presenting himself as an outsider, and by co-opting Sarah Palin in his design, turned the tables on Obama as the team who would really achieve 'change', positive and constructive change, not harmful and destuctive change. The boy done well!

Don

September 5th, 2008 3:00pm

tim, I would be very grateful if you could provide a few links to the ridiculous 'religious' views that most would think shocking if she was a Muslim" in your comment to back up this statement. I have tried and failed to do so. It would be very enlightening to me and others if you could help us out on this.

Craig Strachan

September 5th, 2008 3:16pm

McCain was obviously thrown off by the Iraq Veterans Against the War protesters who interupted several times in the first few minutes, shouting and displaying a banner that read "You can't win an occupation". CNN cut away to them briefly three or four times.

Also, he may have had a special set that thrust him into the audience, but he didn't use it to move around or deliver the relaxed Cameron-style speech James Forsyth reecommended some months ago. Instead he stood frozen and ploughed through a very mediocre and unoriginal speech that rehashed many of the lines of his stump speech. My favorite new line: "Sarah Palin works with her hands and nose." Eh?

Verity

September 5th, 2008 3:18pm

Tim: Her religious views aren't ridiculous. Yours are.

The thing is, Keith, John McCain is the nominee. He is the one chosen by the Republican Party. I hope you can understand that. He is the nominee and it is up to him to choose his team. Don't try to second guess political actions in a foreign country whose laws and rules you don't understand. Everything is going forward as it should.

Fraser speaks the truth when he notes that McCain isn't a natural speaker. And it sounds mean-spirited to carp, and the Viet Nam war did indeed show Senator McCain's mettle, but he should also have talked of his achievements as Senator from Arizona during the ensuing decades.

Nevertheless, his not being an inspiring speaker doesn't mean he isn't thinking along the right lines and doesn't have the hammer and the muscle to drive his programme as far forward as possible.

His wife was another matter. I don't think I've ever heard a more boring speaker in my life, and I include Gordon Brown, Jack Straw and the entire British cabinet in this. I'm sure she's a lovely woman, and we know she's an achieving woman, and she clearly loves her husband very much, but a variation in pace and tone may have kept us awake.

But the McCain/Palin team is a winner. Obama is nowhere. I cannot even imagine how he can begin to fight back. How does a bag of hot air fight rock solid achievements? He'll just keep bouncing off. Maybe on election day, when he goes to the polling booth, he can mark his ballot "Present".

JONNY

September 5th, 2008 4:55pm

'How does a bag of hot air fight rock solid achievements? '

By addressing ordinary voters' problems in the hard world out there, Verity.
Problems like how to avoid repossession. How to settle crippling food and gas bills.
What's going to happen to them when unemployment rises to 6.1% as it has today?
Who's going to help them when they and their family fall sick?
Does anyone care up there?

That's what's going to give Obama/Bidden the election by quite some margin.

Verity

September 5th, 2008 6:25pm

Just to deconstruct Tim's contribution to the world of intelligent thought, he writes, inexplicably, I fear: "So if Sarah is so photogenic, great with the autocue, tell a good joke, look drop-dead gorgeous, know how to attack, and improvise a phrase; why why why does she believe in such ridiculous 'religious' views that most would think shocking if she was a Muslim."

Somehow, being beautiful, being able to follow an autocue, being photogenic militates against being religious in some way? Being able to tell an effective one-liner militates against "religion" in some way. Well, that certainly puts the great Jewish comedians in their place.

Nothing of what you dribbled onto the page contains one iota of logic.

Her beliefs "would be shocking if she were a Muslim?" I'm not quite following this, as she is a Christian. She believes in the sanctity of human life; she believes in charity and forgiveness. She doesn't believe, a la Islam, in conversion at the point of the point of the sword, "marrying" multiple wives, mutilating the genitals of little girls so they will never enjoy sex and thus never be tempted to stray and embarrass their husbands; and she doesn't believe homosexuals should be murdered. Forgive me, but I am all at sea here. I just can't make the synaptic connection here between Christianity and Islam and between Governor Palin and Islam and being photogenic and the ability to tell a joke.

Craig Strachan

September 5th, 2008 8:27pm

And what was with the puke green back drop that abruptly switched to sky blue about 15 minutes into the speech?

Hysteria

September 5th, 2008 9:21pm

What Verity said......

Not what Tim said......

Oh - Actually I thought Mrs McCain not as bad as the lady from e-bay - but there you go.....

TGF UKIP

September 5th, 2008 9:55pm

Fraser, did it not occur to you that even if McCain possessed rather greater oratorical powers, he might well have chosen not to use them.

The more the McCain campaign leave the soaring rhetoric to Obama the more they will be defining him exactly as they want to.

And BTW, how refreshing it must have been for you, Fraser, to be actually in the company of real conservatives instead of the bunch of Tory SocDems you habitually knock about with.

And as for Dave even saying "boo" to the teaching unions, dream on baby!

Don

September 6th, 2008 4:05pm

tim, as I thought you are unable to back up your comments re religion. All you have done is spout rumours you may or may not have understood on the web. Do me a favour in future at least put a little thought and research into your posts before you so obviously embarrass yourself.